Description

Shao Kahn has won. The Earthrealm is no more. In order to revive his Queen Sindel, the emperor Shao Kahn used the Outworld Tournament from Mortal Kombat 2 as a diversion while his Shadow Priests revive his fallen Queen on Earth. Once enacted, the dimensional bridge between the two realms connects, allowing Kahn's extermination squads to invade and destroy Earth, and enslave the population's souls.

A small team of Raiden's "Chosen Warriors" survives the attack: Mortal Kombat champion Liu Kang and his ally Kung Lao, Special Forces agents Sonya Blade and Jax, the shaman Nightwolf, the riot cop Stryker, the nomadic Kabal, and former Lin Kuei warrior Sub-Zero, who has gone rogue from his clan. Facing the warriors are the mercenary Kano, cyber-ninjas Smoke, Sektor and Cyrax, Sheeva, a female Shokan, the sorcerer Shang Tsung, and Queen Sindel herself.

Mortal Kombat 3 brings new elements to the 2D fighting series: multi-level playfields, "Dial-A-Combo" attacks, a "Run" button to speed up the battles, and "Vs." codes, which unlock new powers and abilities once both players enter a code sequence in pre-match-up screens. Also included are more stage fatalities and finishing moves as each warrior attempts to go one-on-one with the Centaurian enforcer Motaro, and Shao Kahn himself.

Mortal Kombat 3 is the last traditional one-on-one fighting game game in the series to feature motion-captured digitized graphics for its kombatants, and introduces online network play to the PC version.

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Trivia

Animalities

The game's "animalities" were inspired when upon the release of Mortal Kombat II, Liu Kang's dragon-morph fatality started a rumour that all the characters were able to morph into some sort of animal as a finishing move. The creators thought this was a fun idea and included it in the game.

Arcade version

The "Graveyard" stage that was found in the arcade version was scrapped for the 16-Bit versions due to memory constraints of the cartridge space. The rest of the gameplay and features remained intact.

Characters

Originally, the character Kurtis Stryker was supposed to appear on Mortal Kombat, but he was scrapped early in the development process when beta tests revealed player's interests on a female character (Sonya replaced him). Later, on for Mortal Kombat II, Kurtis Striker almost made it to the final game, but had his name changed at the last minute to Jax. Finally, Stryker would make his debut in Mortal Kombat 3.

This was the first Mortal Kombat game to feature Sub-Zero unmasked and have a red mark on his eye. This led to many questions however, and it wasn't until 1997 the question were answered in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation. This Sub-Zero was the original's little brother.

Instead of being a ninja like usual, Noob Saibot was actually a palette swap of Kano, Presumably because almost all the ninjas were removed (except the new robot ninjas and Sub-Zero, whose appearance was changed),

Before the developers could come up with names for the new characters Cyrax and Sektor, they were called Mustard and Ketchup respectively.

German index

On November 30, 1995, Mortal Kombat 3, with the exception of the Game Boy version, was put on the infamous German index by the BPjS. For more information about what this means and to see a list of games sharing the same fate, take a look here: BPjS/BPjM indexed games.

In addition to the indexing, on June 12, 1997, the Genesis and PlayStation versions were also confiscated for violating §131 of Germany's penal code (for showing gruel violence against humans etc.)

Rating

This was the only game for the original Game Boy or for the Game Gear to receive an M rating from the ESRB.

References

There are references to the game's creators in the game. Boon and Tobias (MK creators) can be seen on signs in the background of the subway stage and the creators' names are on tombstones in the graveyard stage.

Rumors

The developers dismissed a rumour: that you could perform a "nudality" with Sonya Blade's character.

Version differences

The differences between the PS and SNES versions of the game are the following. In the PS version, they had Friendships and the SNES didn't. In the SNES, you have Shao Kahn, Motaro, and Smoke as secret characters. In the PS version, you only get Smoke. In the SNES version, there was a cheat that would let you play a mini-game. The PS doesn't have that. In the SNES version, there was a code that could let you do one-button fatalities. In the PS, that code is missing.

The Windows 95 PC version released in September, 1996 was different from the 1995 DOS version in that it had "eight all-new characters, two new boss monsters and exclusive new encryption 'kodes' which enable players to alter control settings and intensify game play". It was in fact a port of the Playstation version. A $10.00 rebate was offered inside the retail box for those who had previously purchased the DOS version.